25 August 2011

Fairy tails begin with "once upon a time" and war stories begin with "no shit there I was"

So my war story will begin the same way.

No shit, there I was, naked as a jay bird under the blankets sleeping like a babe.

BOOOOOM!!!!!!!

I jump up, naked, and scramble madly for my pants. Years of experience have trained me that loud noises and lack of pain mean I'm still alive and probably need to do something. The first thing I did was put on pants. After the pants, with 9mm pistol attached to the belt I forgo socks and slipped into a pair of boots and ran to the nearest bunker.

So there I was, armed with a pistol, pants, and boots, hunkering in a concrete bunker with three other guys in various states of undress. Small arms fire started going off in the distance, so a few of us take up positions at the mouths of the bunker and get ready to shoot at any bad guys coming over the walls.

To make a long story short, I then got the call for section leaders to assemble, helped gain accountability of my section, and finally put on a shirt. I'm still getting razzed for being shirtless in front of the most of my colleagues.

Anyways, the BOOOOOM turned out to be about a thousand pounds of explosive packed into a truck that was trying to force it's way through the entry control point. A half ton of boom will whack you pretty good out of your sleep, even if you are 150 meters from the boom point.

Lessons learned? Sleeping naked is good in the heat, not so good for react to bad guy drills. If you have time to grab your pants, you are obviously still alive and should grab a shirt too.

09 August 2011

Hi all,
I have a Bushmaster AR (That I'm very happy with) that I've turned into quite the CQB rifle. With a furnishing of Magpul accessories and furniture it looks awesome and functions great.. Just what I want and need as a personal carbine. Now I've set my sights on a SPR type AR as a DMR-functioning rifle. Basically an AR that will compliment my other, and have a little synergistic role. Both will shoot 5.56 (granted if I was taking for making real *real* precision shots of course I would want better ammo in the SPR) but anyway, both use the same ammo, mags, and function about the same . I would also be configuring the R-15 to function as a SPR/DMR but also be 'able' to fight with it if necessary... i.e. I liked the SIG DMR when I first 'met' it but I strongly doubt you could fight a battle with it, it's too heavy/unwieldly to fight with, it's too much of a 'sniper rifle' which is not really what I'm looking for.http://remington.com/products/firear...r-carbine.aspx
SO that's the link to what I'm thinking of , the R-15 'Predator Carbine' which features an 18" barrel and also a Free Float tube. Now the tube is what i'm wondering about. Does it have/allow for a bottom of the tube rail? Bec. I could deal with those "slots" around the tube if/when I needed to mount accessories by mounting those little screw-in mini-rails that you also use on the Magpul MOE handguard.
But on the bottom, I want to do some stuff. As an SPR I want it to have some fighting capabilities. I would mount a Magpul AFG on the bottom rear for gripping of course but also for holding if I needed to use it like that... and then a Bipod up front. so is there a way to put a rail on the bottom?
Also I'd want to make the rear A2 stock into a Magpul PRS, just seems so much better. And it looks like it takes BUIS pretty easy with a gas block mount, and then it would just need a nice great scope.
Waht do you think? eems like a real reasonable solution to a SPR/DMR instead of like $3000 for a Noveske ( no doubt better but so expensive)
from TAKticool

So that is from a post on thefiringline.com and as far as I can tell the guy is serious. Other than a serious case of "Magpulitis" he seems to have decided that whatever length of barrel he has on his bushmaster is just not enough to make a shot out to 600....

Obviously no one ever went to war with a 9 pound rifle that only had an 8 round clip. For "CQB" you obviously you need a "CQB setup" that obviously can't shoot out to 600 yards... Obviously the best shots out there use the Magpul PRS because it is so much better than the standard A2 stock that is used by high power competitors and actual Dedicated Riflemen....

The rifle is just a tool. All strength, power, and ability lies in the wielder. The accessories you slap onto a rifle are just toys. Good ammo helps, but training trumps toys.

02 August 2011

At the end of Vietnam the brass was told "Do More With Less" and they tried their best. It all ended up with massive air strikes dropping thousands of dumb bombs at a time with no real plan to help the South Vietnamese government provide stability.

Today the timeline for "withdrawal by 2014" was made quite apparent. Battlespace owners are getting "more battlespace" and mentors are getting more Afghan units to mentor. Everybody is getting more of all the work to do. Plans for getting the Afghan National Security Forces to take over security have been prioritized and made abundantly clear.

This is like my last tour in Iraq all over again. My Battalion took the largest chunk of the Brigade battle space, and by the end of it had taken over the battle space for two other battalions. Well, with 10,000 soldiers leaving Afghanistan by the end of the year means everyone has to take a bigger bite out of the shit sandwich. 23,000 by the end of next year. This is all public knowledge, nothing secret about our well published withdrawl timeline...

I have my doubts about the ability of Afghanistan to ever emerge as a stable nation state given the culture of corruption, infighting, tribalism, and constant warfare endemic to this place. The good thing about this generation is that when I go home I won't be spit on like my Vietnam era brothers.

I wonder if those same Vietnam vets felt the same way about the Paris "peace agreements" that I do about the "talks with the Taliban." But the sad truth is that there are some folks who truly believe that you can take a Communist or Terrorist at their word. I can't predict the future, so I do not know how long Afghanistan will stand after US withdrawl. But if history is any judge, about 2 years after we stop giving them air support.

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About Me

Raised by conservative Christian parents, enlisted in the Army at 18, used the GI Bill to finish college, and I'm back in the Army.
Along the way I've encountered a huge cast of characters, some I got into trouble with, some that passed on skills that have helped me on my life journey.